Hyderabad, March 01: The Gulbarg Society massacre took place on February 28, 2002, during the 2002 Gujarat riots, when a mob attacked the Gulbarg Society, a lower middle-class Muslim neighbourhood in Chamanpura, Ahmedabad. Most of the houses were burnt, and at least 35 victims including a former Congress Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, while 31 others went missing after the incident, later presumed dead, bringing the total of the dead to 69.
ust a day after the 2002 Gujarat riots erupted, at 9 am on February 28, 2002, a frenzied mob started gathering outside the Gulbarg Society, a cluster of 29 bungalows and 10 apartment buildings housing upper middle class business families mostly belonging to Muslim community, in Ahmedabad city’s Hindu-dominated Chamanpura area, and began shouting slogans. Many of residents took refuge in the home of septuagenarian former Congress MP, Ehsan Jafri, who according to eye witnesses kept on frantically calling police and political set-up for help, in vain. By noon, the mob turned violent, it breached the boundary wall and started torching houses, and attacking residents, and in the next six hours 69 were dead, including Ehasan Jafri, who was hacked to death and burnt alive as were at least 35 other victims, at least 85 others were injured.
The Society with most of house damaged or burnt was later abandoned, of the 18 houses which were brunt, only one has been repaired, though none of the families returned, though some of them congregate, each year on the anniversary of the event and offer prayers.
AFTERMATH THE MASSACRE…
In response to the complaint filed by Zakia Jaffri, widow of Ehsan Jafri, the Supreme Court of India on April 27, 2009, appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by RK Raghavan, a former head of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case. It reopened nine crucial riot cases. Seven years after the incident, in February 2009, Erda, the Deputy Superintendent of Police with the Gujarat Police at the time was arrested on charges of dereliction of duty and for tampering of evidence. As some survivors alleged that he not only allowed the killings to happen but also helped rioters to burn the dead bodies.[6] The SIT finally submitted its report on May 14, 2010 to the to the apex court registry of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court of India on March 26, 2008, ordered the Narendra Modi government to re-investigate 10 cases in the 2002 Gujarat riots, including the Godhra train burning and subsequent Godhra riots where 81 people were killed, Gulbarg Society where 68 were killed, Naroda Patia where over 100 were killed, Sardarpur where 34 were killed and Best Bakery case where 14 people were burnt alive.[15] Zakiya Jafri, wife of Ehsan Jafri, who burnt alive on the day, first made the complaint on June 8, 2006 alleging that the police had not registered the FIRs against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and 62 others including several ministers and alleging a conspiracy to allow the massacre of Muslims, which involved instructing policemen and bureaucrats not to respond to pleas for help from Muslims being attacked during the riots. The complaint included VHP leaders Praveen Togadia and Jaideep Patel, DGP of the state PC Pande for abetting the riots. She then approached the Gujarat High Court with her complaint, which on November 3, 2007, refused to entertain her plea, and instead asked her to present the case before magistrate’s court. Subsequently, she approached the Supreme Court of India, which on April 27, 2009 appointed a five-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) under headed by R K Raghavan, a former head of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to investigate into these cases, and asked the SIT to look into a her complaint of alleged collusion of the state machinery and the rioters over the two days of Gujarat riots.
In October 2007, the Aaj Tak New Channel showed footage of a sting operation carried out by Tehelka magazine, wherein 14 VHP or Bajrang Dal activists, including, Madan Chawal, a Gulbarg Society massacre accused, and a BJP MLA from Godhra, Haresh Bhatt who was national vice-president of Bajrang Dal during the riots, were shown talking about the execution the killings and the way the state machinery collaborated with them.The investigative journalists reports were finally published in the November 3, 2007 issue of Tehelka as The Truth: Gujarat 2002 – Tehelka report.
PRESENT GULBARG:
Everything has changed beyond recognition in Gulbarg Society, a cluster of bungalows amid poor middle class habitations in the eastern part of the city, which was once famous for its textile mills. If one happens to visit the place, one would be surprised that it was ever inhabited by humans.
The society looks like a jungle with thick vegetation of tall trees and long grass that have grown all over the place in the seven years since the February-March 2002 violence.
The 18 bungalows and six flats with decorative plants in its compound, which perhaps was the reason for naming it after the famous Gulbarg gardens in Kashmir, lie in a dilapidated state with their doors and windows missing. The soot-enveloped inside walls of the bungalows narrate the gory details of the incidents of 2002.
This is the only riot hit residential society where people have not returned to live. Other societies have been reoccupied, albeit partially, as several riot victims are still hesitant to go back there as well.
Parsi couple, Dara and Rupa Mody, who lived in this society, lost their 14-year-old son Azhar in the 2002 conundrum. A film titled Parzania, with the missing of Azhar as the central theme, could not be screened in Gujarat owing to indirect threats to theatre owners from some saffron elements. The Parsi couple with their only daughter now live in the upmarket Vastrapur area.
Local refer to the buildings as ‘bhoot bungalows’ owing to the dreaded sight they offer to the viewers.
Survivors of the 2002 riots, who left the place under police protection after the killing of former Congress Rajya Sabha MP Ehsan Jafri and 38 other residents, have not returned to live in their ‘dream houses’, built with their life’s savings. The owners can’t even find buyers for them owing to the peculiar circumstances.
The society is guarded 24×7 by the State Reserve Police (SRP) personnel, but even they don’t sit within the premises for reasons best known to them. They sit with their .303 rifles at the gates of a government school across the road, keeping a close watch on journalists and other visitors to the site.
Gulbarg Society was the only Muslim habitation in the sprawling Asarwa constituency which was won by BJP’s Pradipsinh Bhagwansinh Jadeja with a huge margin in the December 2002 and the December 2007 Assembly polls, contested amid deep communal polarisation.
The BJP has been winning this Assembly seat for the last four times with a huge margin.
With residents shifting to other places as per their convenience, the place has almost become irrelevant as far as the elections are concerned.
Almost all the survivors have got their names entered into the electoral rolls of the areas where they are living at present. “What is the meaning of having your names on the electoral rolls of an area where you can’t live,” said Naeem, one of the survivors.
The only resident, who has been keeping touch with the society on a daily basis, is Altaf Mansuri, who runs a tent business from his bungalow, after getting it partly repaired. But even he stays here only during the daytime. As soon as dusk approaches, he shuts his shop and rushes back to his new residence in Rakhial, about six kilometres away, where he has been living with his family after the riots. He says none of the bungalow owners, including a retired Inspector Yusuf Patel, and an excise department official, are willing to come here.
Mansuri had lost 18 members of his family in the riots.
Mansuri and some Muslim ‘larriwalas’ (handcart pullers), have, nevertheless, renovated the small prayer hall inside the society compound to meet their religious and spiritual requirements. ‘Larriwalas’ use the society premises to park their ‘larris’ at night as they too don’t like to stay here at night.
Ehsan Jafri’s son Tanvir, who works as a senior management executive in L&T in Surat says, “How can one go back to live in a society where one has witnessed the killing of their near and dear ones?”
His mother Zakia, who had managed to escape from the society, had moved the Gujarat HC seeking registration of criminal offence against CM Narendra Modi and 62 others, including former Home Minister Gordhan Zadafia, but it was rejected. The matter is now pending for hearing in the Supreme Court this March.
Tanvir is against the sale of the bungalows and the flats till the case continues. “Theyare evidence of the crime and we want to keep it till the final judgement,” says Tanvir.
The Gulbarg Society massacre is among the 10 most heinous riot cases being investigated by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT). Besides the police naming 46 accused, the SIT has named 26 others, and arrested several of them including K G Erda, the then police Inspector in charge of the area and now Dy SP. He is out on bail.
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO HEAR THE TRUTH FROM SURVIVORS….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-n8U5grHs&feature=related (7)
—sYED MAJID—-